We are now entering the third decade of the 21st Century, and, especially in recent years, the achievements made by researchers and professionals have been exceptional, leading to major advancements in the fast-growing field of the Built Environment.Frontiers has organised a series of Research Topics to highlight the latest advancements in research across the field of Built Environment with articles from the members of our accomplished Editorial Boards.

Dear readers of Frontiers in Built Environment, As the Field Chief Editor for Frontiers in Built Environment, I am happy to present this curated selection of papers that have made a significant impact within our community. Among the large number of submissions that we received, these 14 papers represent some of the best published in 2023, the year when the journal attained its first impact factor. With many high-quality papers to consider, in selecting these 14 articles we faced the challenging task of how to include papers from across the 15 distinct sections of the journal whilst at the same time achieving a sense of cohesion to the ebook overall. However, amidst this diversity, we noticed a convergence in our highest-quality papers around three pivotal themes that are central to our journal’s mission: resilience, sustainability, and technology. In this way, despite the broad range of topics covered within both our journal and this selection, this ebook can truly be considered representative of our journal as a whole. These carefully chosen papers encompass high-quality original research and comprehensive reviews, which also embody the ethos of innovation and excellence that defines our journal. As the Field Chief Editor, I am thankful to all authors who have enriched our journal with their high-caliber work. I extend sincere appreciation to the dedicated efforts of our editors and reviewers, whose invaluable contributions have been instrumental in shaping Frontiers in Built Environment in 2023.

This volume brings together research and system designs that address the scientific basis and the practical systems design issues that support areas ranging from intelligent business interfaces and predictive analytics to economics modeling. Applications for management science and IT have been of interest areas for business schools and computing experts during recent years. Among the areas that are being treated are modern analytics, heterogeneous computing, business intelligence, ERP (enterprise resource planning), and decision science. Consumers have been pledging their love for data visualizations for a while now, and data is the area being explored, such as B2B and EC (E-commerce), E-business and the Intelligent Web, CRM (customer relationship management), infrastructures, and more. The digitization implications of these many new applications are described and explored in this informative volume.

We are living at the dawn of what has been termed ‘the fourth paradigm of science,’ a scientific revolution that is marked by both the emergence of big data science and analytics, and by the increasing adoption of the underlying technologies in scientific and scholarly research practices. Everything about science development or knowledge production is fundamentally changing thanks to the ever-increasing deluge of data. This is the primary fuel of the new age, which powerful computational processes or analytics algorithms are using to generate valuable knowledge for enhanced decision-making, and deep insights pertaining to a wide variety of practical uses and applications. This book addresses the complex interplay of the scientific, technological, and social dimensions of the city, and what it entails in terms of the systemic implications for smart sustainable urbanism. In concrete terms, it explores the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field of smart sustainable urbanism and the unprecedented paradigmatic shifts and practical advances it is undergoing in light of big data science and analytics. This new era of science and technology embodies an unprecedentedly transformative and constitutive power—manifested not only in the form of revolutionizing science and transforming knowledge, but also in advancing social practices, producing new discourses, catalyzing major shifts, and fostering societal transitions. Of particular relevance, it is instigating a massive change in the way both smart cities and sustainable cities are studied and understood, and in how they are planned, designed, operated, managed, and governed in the face of urbanization. This relates to what has been dubbed data-driven smart sustainable urbanism, an emerging approach based on a computational understanding of city systems and processes that reduces urban life to logical and algorithmic rules and procedures, while also harnessing urban big data to provide a more holistic and integrated view or synoptic intelligence of the city. This is increasingly being directed towards improving, advancing, and maintaining the contribution of both sustainable cities and smart cities to the goals of sustainable development. This timely and multifaceted book is aimed at a broad readership. As such, it will appeal to urban scientists, data scientists, urbanists, planners, engineers, designers, policymakers, philosophers of science, and futurists, as well as all readers interested in an overview of the pivotal role of big data science and analytics in advancing every academic discipline and social practice concerned with data–intensive science and its application, particularly in relation to sustainability.

The development of smart cities is one of the most important challenges over the next few decades. Governments and companies are leveraging billions of dollars in public and private funds for smart cities. Next generation smart cities are heavily dependent on distributed smart sensing systems and devices to monitor the urban infrastructure. The smart sensor networks serve as autonomous intelligent nodes to measure a variety of physical or environmental parameters. They should react in time, establish automated control, and collect information for intelligent decision-making. In this context, one of the major tasks is to develop advanced frameworks for the interpretation of the huge amount of information provided by the emerging testing and monitoring systems. Data Analytics for Smart Cities brings together some of the most exciting new developments in the area of integrating advanced data analytics systems into smart cities along with complementary technological paradigms such as cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT). The book serves as a reference for researchers and engineers in domains of advanced computation, optimization, and data mining for smart civil infrastructure condition assessment, dynamic visualization, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), cyber-physical systems, and smart construction technologies. The chapters are presented in a hands-on manner to facilitate researchers in tackling applications. Arguably, data analytics technologies play a key role in tackling the challenge of creating smart cities. Data analytics applications involve collecting, integrating, and preparing time- and space-dependent data produced by sensors, complex engineered systems, and physical assets, followed by developing and testing analytical models to verify the accuracy of results. This book covers this multidisciplinary field and examines multiple paradigms such as machine learning, pattern recognition, statistics, intelligent databases, knowledge acquisition, data visualization, high performance computing, and expert systems. The book explores new territory by discussing the cutting-edge concept of Big Data analytics for interpreting massive amounts of data in smart city applications.

This book is a collection of seminal position essays by leading researchers on new development in Geographic Information Sciences (GIScience), covering a wide range of topics and representing a variety of perspectives. The authors propose enrichments and extensions to the conceptual framework of GIScience; discuss a series of transformational methodologies and technologies for analysis and modeling; elaborate on key issues in innovative approaches to data acquisition and integration, across earth sensing to social sensing; and outline frontiers in application domains, spanning from natural science to humanities and social science, e.g., urban science, land use and planning, social governance, transportation, crime, and public health, just name a few. The book provides an overview of the strategic directions on GIScience research and development. It will benefit researchers and practitioners in the field who are seeking a high-level reference regarding those directions.

Along with advances in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care of diseases, major health problems of the 21st century need to incorporate the point of view of those affected. Exploring, describing, and understanding the experiences of patients and populations is key to implementing health programs. Advancing public health involves training and involving and empowering vulnerable communities and populations.

This book provides comprehensive guidance for the implementation of the legal requirements of FIDIC contracts with a detailed application of modern project management principles. It demonstrates that the FIDIC suites for works and services contain many tools for good project management, which can complement the innovation needed today to guide sustainable development. The author’s experience in construction management, construction law, and the application of FIDIC contracts as a FIDIC engineer, a procurement/claims consultant, and a FIDIC accredited/certified adjudicator and trainer underpins this unique and much-needed book linking FIDIC contract management with project management practices and concepts. It is structured around project management knowledge areas, and details not only the FIDIC works contracts (Red/Yellow/Silver 2017 Reprint 2022, Emerald 2019, Gold 2008, and Green Book 2021) but also the project management requirements of the contract between the Employer and Engineer (White Book 2017) and the FIDIC supply-chain contracts, and explains how these all interface in project governance. Linking the project management knowledge areas from the PMBOK® and its Construction Extension with the FIDIC Body of Knowledge (FBOK), the book provides recommendations for integration of best practice and innovations. It illustrates these processes with 54 flowcharts and 16 case studies, as well as a railway scenario demonstrating the application of the book’s recommended procedures. This will be an invaluable source of practical guidance for employers, contractors, and engineers responsible for procuring and managing construction projects. It provides useful insight for technical, legal, and financial experts on the management of processes, contracts, and digital tools, with recommendations on how to tailor and use the FIDIC contracts for project success.

People's desire to understand the environments in which they live is a natural one. People spend most of their time in spaces and structures designed, built, and managed by humans, and it is estimated that people in developed countries now spend 90 percent of their lives indoors. As people move from homes to workplaces, traveling in cars and on transit systems, microorganisms are continually with and around them. The human-associated microbes that are shed, along with the human behaviors that affect their transport and removal, make significant contributions to the diversity of the indoor microbiome. The characteristics of "healthy" indoor environments cannot yet be defined, nor do microbial, clinical, and building researchers yet understand how to modify features of indoor environmentsâ€"such as building ventilation systems and the chemistry of building materialsâ€"in ways that would have predictable impacts on microbial communities to promote health and prevent disease. The factors that affect the environments within buildings, the ways in which building characteristics influence the composition and function of indoor microbial communities, and the ways in which these microbial communities relate to human health and well-being are extraordinarily complex and can be explored only as a dynamic, interconnected ecosystem by engaging the fields of microbial biology and ecology, chemistry, building science, and human physiology. This report reviews what is known about the intersection of these disciplines, and how new tools may facilitate advances in understanding the ecosystem of built environments, indoor microbiomes, and effects on human health and well-being. It offers a research agenda to generate the information needed so that stakeholders with an interest in understanding the impacts of built environments will be able to make more informed decisions.